The postcard showing the Kon Tiki Bar at the Imperial Lounge in Harris' Far East Imperial Restaurant was THE image that struck me with \"Tiki Awe\" when I first opened The Book of Tiki. The full page shot of this bar was amazing with towering rock wall and the floor to ceiling Tikis!
I finally got the card a while back.

The back of the card provides a good description of the restaurant, with the Cuban stone wall, Tahitian Idols and the Imperial Luau happy hour from 4-6 on weekdays.

I also have a couple of postcards that show the outside of the building. The majestic neon sign and lots of eastern style artifacts. There is even a lone tiki on the grounds.

Many of you will remember Basement Kahuna's grand archeological score of finding the tiki columns from the bar from this thread.

What a fabulous place! I was always grateful for it providing one of the key images of the Book of Tiki. That first bar shot (and its caption) says it all! And now the exterior, it's so Asian Modern.

I wonder if the owner was American, or as is the case sometimes, was an Asian who americanized his name. If "Surfer" is still checking in here, he could answer that question:

Quote:

On 2008-05-13 13:33, Surfer wrote:WOW, sadly I hate to report Sam Harris, a good friend of my dads passed away some years ago. This post brings back memories, went to the "Imperial House" many times as a kid. I still live very close by, but alas the building was leveled and dirt is all that's left.

The name "Far East" is intriguing, because it is not outright Chinese, so he absolutely could have been a WWII-generation American (like a Pacific veteran, or foreign envoy) that came up with an Exotica/ Ports of Call concept.

Here is the dinner menu from far east imperial and the dinner menu from imperial house. these menus have simmilar prices but layout changed around. imperial house drink menu and inside. sorry not near a scanner.

On 2009-06-06 11:57, Dustycajun wrote:Bigbro,
Interesting thing about the name - it appears that the Far East was dropped at some point as the back of my postcard has Harris' Imperial as the name.
DC

Ha! Maybe my hunch is right, especially judging by the "crest" logos on the menu covers: The eagle with the arrows is American, right? Maybe "Imperial" really was the unabashed motto, an attitude that later when the Vietnam war went awry acquired the negative connotation of being "imperialistic".

What a killer place.How does such a cool place like this get leveled is beyond me.
Could you imagine this place are one like it, up and operating today with that
incredible interior.Oh the humanity of it all !!!!
Another xlnt post by da man himself DC .

Based on Basement Kahuna and Geoff picking up two even sets.There are still three
more sets of tikis floating out there .The post card showing a total of five floor
to ceiling tikis.I would give my right *&*** @ for one of those complete tikis!

On 2009-06-06 18:14, 1961surf wrote:Based on Basement Kahuna and Geoff picking up two even sets.There are still three
more sets of tikis floating out there .The post card showing a total of five floor
to ceiling tikis.I would give my right *&*** @ for one of those complete tikis!

actually there are more of those tikis floating around if you consider that they were all half tikis with the inside cored out to fit around the support poles in the bar....odds are good you may find just one half somewhere out there if you can't find a whole one containing both halves....
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Thanks for this great post, DC! I've wondered what the rest of this place looked like.

It's interesting to note that the cocktail menu DC posted features the Derby Daiquiri. This is a Mai-Kai drink. Even the graphic of the cocktail glass with the jockey stem is the glass that was designed specifically for the Derby Daiquiri and the Mai-Kai served thousands of them in that glass over the years. I think the menu drawings and the font used is the same as the Mai-Kai menu too. These two places were only about 5 miles apart, so maybe the Thornton brothers had their hands in it in some way? Either that or they were blatantly copied, which was a common practice.

Actually, BK had more than the ones he ended up with. I can't recall now, but I know at least one more set of 2 of the carved poles was sold before Dave went home with his pair. They ended up at Geoff's place. He may have seen 6 of them, but at least 4 carvings.

omg.Just randomly searching about my grandparents and I came across this. Sam Harris was my grandpa. So funny to read about other people talking about the Imperial. I hardly know where to begin. First, the one postcard with a solitary man in the background, that's Sam. Then, the one at the bar, my grandpa is the 4th individual from right. Kind of shadowed. Sam was from Crete, Stamatis Huardikas,(sp) off the boat, and began bussing tables without knowing word one of English. So fascinating knowing someone has or knows whereabouts of Tiki's? I used to swing around them when I was little. I would dearly love to touch one someday. Just knowing they were a part of people that so long ago left and were so precious to me. If I could answer any questions, I would be more than happy to.